Quantum Transport of Heat and Energy Transfers

Heating progressively drives the transition from quantum to classical behaviors. Nonetheless, the transport of heat itself is ruled by the laws of quantum mechanics. In the team, we explore the quantum aspects of heat transport, establishing experimentally the basic foundations of quantum theory.
The study of heat/energy transfers also provides a very revealing viewpoint on the many-body quantum physics in electrical circuit. With this approach, we explore the electronic correlations, the relaxation and quantum decoherence mechanisms or the nature of electronic degrees of freedom in low-dimensional conductors.

Figure 1: The energy distribution f(E) spectroscopy along a 1D quantum Hall channel (continuous lines) is here performed using the discrete electronic levels of a small quantum dot (circle) as energy filters.

Figure 2: The flow of heat across a tunable number of electronic quantum channels (small constrictions between the yellow split gates) is obtained by injecting a few femto-watts of Joules power into a micron-scale metallic island (brown) and measuring the resulting increase in temperature from the electrical current fluctuations.